This Waltz
For the last week, every morning and every night I’ve watched "Before Sunset" by Richard Linkletter, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Well, I con’t exatly watch the entire thing, every day, just segments of it.
Particularly the part where Julie Delpy’s character Celine plays the guitar for Ethan Hawke’s Jesse, and the piece is a waltz.
Celine’s song is a memory in melody. How she felt about this "one night thing" she had and how much she wants one more try, one more night with the person because he, Jesse is the name she sings, was what, that night, what she had always dreamt of in life.
As she sings it, as the words flow out of her, she smiles, she is saddened in quicksilver changes. The memory of that night and the hundreds more lost after it because the person she shared that night with was, she thought, forever gone and removed from her. It was an exercise in viewing fragility, strength and the tenacity of memory for me. She is an amazing actress, Julie Delpy.
The song is quite short, two minutes tops, but it so touches me because i remember feeling the exact same way the song flowed. Happy and light but, with a meloncholy content imbedded within.
As for Jesse, he sits there, among the sofa cushions, and his face is a revelation as he looks at Celine and watches her, listens to her song. He has the expression of a slowly drowning man suddenly saved. He smiles, laughs with such relief. He was lost, but now he has found the one thing he was looking for for so long and now he will find himself and his way forward, away from emptiness.
Sheewiz. Am such a romantic it’s disgusting.
